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Originally Posted by Virginia1991
Fast forward to present Virginia. I feel an emptiness in my chest and stomach. I feel spacey in my head. I have all these mother fantasies floating around in my head. I have become obsessed with maternal figures, to the point where I am losing friendships. My marriage was great going into therapy(I am female) Now we are growing distant. Is it me? Is it her? Or both? I have all these weird sort of touch issues. Which I have always had but now I have these obsessions about receiving nurturing touch from 3 women who I guess I have "maternal transference" for. I don't like the way I look. I pick at my face on a regular basis (very embarrassing). I am craving drugs again after being clean for 10 years. I did not have this low of self-esteem before therapy. The mother fantasies and obsessions were very minor (if at all).
I think I might be doing worse. I want to stop therapy but I am way to attached to her. The only reason I am going is I can't bare the thought of not seeing her. I feel therapy might not be for me but if I stop seeing her I think I would be so sad and cry all the time. The transference with her is intense (mostly maternal, but sometimes ET, and sometimes negative transference) The thing is....she is a great t. Kind, gentle, attentive, consistent, allows unlimited outside contact, patient, never gets frustrated with me. I could go on and on. She is like the perfect t for me, but something must be going horribly wrong for me to feel worse, right? I have been giving it time. I am stuck. I am having the same issues I had a year ago. I cannot go on with these mother fantasies, maternal attractions, and obsessing over receiving any sort of nurturing touch from my t or my reiki t. This cannot be normal, right? Should I stop therapy? Should I take a break? Or is the cat out of the bag and I need to keep working through these issues with my t? Should I show/tell her this? Opinions and advice would be so appreciated right now.
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When I first started therapy I had the ET and then the MT. Now I have both but my Et is more about the connection - I don't want anything from her. Here is what I went through and you can read some old threads of mine. At first I was completely obsessed with what I wanted from her and couldn't get. I would think "I just want her to say she cares" then I would realize my mom never did and cry. I cried ALL THE TIME. I'm not normally a crier but I would at the drop of a hat in front of anyone. Work was horrible - I couldn't focus, cried, would leave for hours because I was unstable. I read everything I could which my T. pointed out was a way of me avoiding feelings - I was intellectualizing it instead of talking about my feelings. I wanted to see her all the time, an extremely intense longing. I would drive by her work and googled her which others have pointed out is a way to get/feel close. I could barely talk in my sessions because I felt all these feelings were crazy. She's not my mom, can't be and she's around my age. At this point I totally pushed away my family. So much so that my H thought I was having an affair - i would go run an errand and drive around for a few hours just crying and processing. At this point I told my T. I'm pushing everyone away and admitted the ET.
Then, I went into wondering how she does everything - who cooks dinner, what does she cook, how is she with her family, etc. I still do to an extent and it drives me CRAZY. Next, I went through a stage of just wanting to hurt myself like drink a lot, drugs, whatever. I didn't care if something happened to me. It reminded me of myself in college when I was rebellious.
So, I told my T. that I think I went through some stages of childhood with her. Infant - wanting everything from her, craving her, etc.
Young child - wanting to mirror - her actions/homelife, etc.
Teenager - rebellious stage of not caring and maybe as a way of wanting her to notice.
I'm not sure if I"m in college now or an adult. I still crave what she can't give me, I still wonder about her, I still have the ET when I"m in my sessions and she asks me difficult things or locks eyes with me. I'm in a very insecure phase - don't fully trust her, not sure if she really cares, etc.
In the Emotionally Distant Mother book, they mention phases of transference and the insecure one is a later stage before the secure attachment, I think.
I wanted to stop therapy and threatened many times. Apparently those with childhood emotional neglect are hard to keep in therapy. We don't want to need anyone or be dependent on anyone. My T. told me I would be worse if I stopped but didn't tell me in what way.
I think the best thing you can do is talk to her more about how you're feeling as crazy as it may feel/sound. I wish I had talked to my T. more. I did most of it on my own.
I think I was mourning what my mom never gave me and what I wanted from T. I still am. But, now I feel myself moving on to mourning that she's gone. I"m still angry so have awhile to go. Keep pushing through - it will get better. you'll have weeks where you don't think you can do it anymore and then you'll have week where you feel completely fine and think the transference is gone. It's so strange!